Opinion | ‘Adolescence’ and the surprising difficulty of embracing a teenage son

At the beginning of the first episode of the Netflix series in four “teenage” parts, a father and a son sit in a room in a police station because his son was accused of murder. The boy, Jamie, who is 13 years old, was surrounded by officers, lawyers and medical operators who understand barely. Only with his father, he cries.

During the scene, Eddie, the father, protrudes repeatedly forward or starts lifting his arm as if he was to embrace or comfort his son, but never touches Jamie. Instead, Eddie tells Jamie: “Eat Your Cornflakes”. Practical issues: this is how Eddie shows love.

During that long first day in the police station, Eddie makes very little physical contact with his son. They do not embrace until the final scene of the episode, after both of them examined the video tests that break the son of the son. Their possible embrace, initially wanted by Jamie and rejected by Eddie, is not of comfort but of shared devastation.

That gap is echoed in the distant relationship between the investigator, Luke and his son. Both dads struggle to put love within them in the hearts of their boys.

My relationship with my teenage son is different and, I think, quite hot. However, I know that struggle. While my eldest son came out of early childhood, his shoulders widening to combine mine and his voice that moved a register, I wondered what to do with this emerging adult who now lived my home. Like someone who grew up without dad around, I missed a healthy model to imitate. I didn’t know how to break down that wall of silence and mystery that insinuates itself between parents and their teenagers. But I knew that this destruction of the barrier is an essential task for parents. Looking at the show reminded me that I wasn’t alone.

In a past generation, researchers who studied the impact of the fathers on their children often focused on their physical absence from home. The boys raised without their fathers around, showed the research, were at greater risk of all types of negative results relating to social development and crime.

Now we know that it is not enough for men just to live in the house, like both fathers on the show. Physical affection has powerful implications for male emotional and mental development.

Love (verbal and physical) that Fathers express themselves towards their children He is a key predictor of the fact that teenage boys will have problems managing aggression and violence during their adolescence. In “adolescence”, Jamie is an extreme manifestation of a common problem. Too many of our kids are drift without a healthy paternal guide.

As fathers, we serve as the introduction of our children to masculinity. Too often we take it to mean that they do not need the type of physical affection that we gave them when they were small. Or that sarcasm should completely replace the statement as a means of relating them.

Our physical affection shows them that it is ok to be strong and weak, love and be loved. It is a way to give children permission to be different. In the absence of healthy models, some boys will try to define their virility through aggression and sexual conquest. In “adolescence”, we see Jamie try to demonstrate his masculinity through sexual activity and, later, deadly violence.

With my children, I found a game that I called “Seven Minutes with Dad”. I sat down to each of my four children and I would start a timer. We faced each other and my son could tell me what he wanted, but I didn’t ask questions. He or she took the command. My elementary school -school children often started rapidly a bewildered speech on what they made during the PE or the multiplication tables they were learning. They could be surprisingly open on the child who has bullied for lunch or pushed their friend to the playground.

My teenagers (a girl and a boy) were often more hesitant, but when they finally began to speak, it often lasted more than seven minutes. Other times, still hoping to reach him, I would call my teenage son on the sofa or in my office and I asked him to tell me something that was true – not a superficial anecdote but something about his life or day that could help me know him.

When it was younger, the hugs naturally arrived, as normal conclusions until the end of a day or as a welcome house from work. A few days I still have to be intentional to overcome that emotional or physical wall.

I discovered that as parents, we must learn the rhythm of the heart of each child and play the songs that can reach it. All great music has a mix of structure and feeling, tribute and innovation that allows you to create true beauty. Each house is different, but there are common elements that create a flourishing childhood.

I have missed it, and numerous studies suggest that other young people are feeling it too. That lack of a safe emotional foundation makes them turn to influencers on the internet, as the character Jamie did, who do not love them and only want to pass their emotional and sexual dysfunction to a confused young male population.

In “teenagence”, the relationship between Luca and his son, Adam, works as an alternative that ends Jamie’s sad story. After making a break in case, Luke finally stops to elaborate everything he has experienced. He sees his son in the distance and invites him to take some chips and a soda. The boy initially refuses, saying: “You have your case”. Adam assumes that his career comes before their relationship. Luke replies: “I have some free time. I want to spend it with you because I love you.” The difference between Luke and Eddie is that Luke still has time to repair the relationship.

“Adolescence” is a fictional work in which the cause and effect are simplified. But he wakes us back to a reality that is clear to anyone who pays attention: many of our kids are not well, and it is up to those of us who love to do something about it.